Sam Abell

Seeing Gardens (New Millennium)

by Sam Abell

Publisher's Description

Having traveled and photographed for National Geographic for thirty years, Sam Abell has crafted his vision in interaction with the people and places, sights and sounds of the numerous countries he has visited. Throughout this decades-long journey, his eye has turned to the myriad gardens that surround us-planned, formal gardens, found, natural gardens, and "the many allusions to gardens in daily life." This handsome, thematic retrospective book contains his finest work in both images and words, offering a window into the creative mind of a loved and gifted photographer.

Amazon.com Review

In his 1990 book Stay This Moment, National Geographic photographer Sam Abell wrote, "There are few fresh photographs of gardens because photographing beautiful things is difficult." Now, almost as if in answer to himself, Abell has produced Seeing Gardens, with 150 quiet, intensely gorgeous full-frame images from around the globe that stand as a testament to his ability to do exactly that: photograph beautiful things in a fresh and inventive way. In his simple, elegant text, Abell provides insights into how he came to take many of his better known images, such as National Hotel, Moscow, Russia, which features a handful of pears resting on a windowsill with the Kremlin in the background. Perhaps never before have Abell's sumptuous photographs been placed in a more apt context--that of the garden, both in a literal sense, like his stunning images of temple gardens in Japan, and in a figurative sense, including his shot of a blue neon sign that simply says "FLOWERS." --Walt Opie